


Married at First-ish Sight

by gingercinderella



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Civilian Kara Thrace, F/M, cause even the colonies would have trashy reality tv and we all know it, married at first sight au, past kara/zak, reality tv show
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:08:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24905095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingercinderella/pseuds/gingercinderella
Summary: Kara's got nothing to lose by letting the matchmakers from Married At First Sight try to find her a husband. No longer with the fleet, she's bored on Caprica.Lee could use some godsdamn stability in his life and when he sees a chance to apply for Married At First Sight, he takes it.Wouldn't you know it, they get matched to marry.
Relationships: Lee "Apollo" Adama/Kara "Starbuck" Thrace
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	1. Your Little Heart Goes Pitter-Patter

Kara woke in her bed with the hangover already thrumming around in her head. She had work in two hours, and yelling at people in the gym was going to only make it worse. Delightful.

She chugged water as she got ready for the day and it wasn't until she checked her datapad that she realized she had a confirmation email that she had put in an application for Married at First Sight. 

She chuckled as the memory trickled back of her watching the reality show and going to the site that they'd advertised as “now casting” and filling out the form. 

They'd never pick her. She was a crashed out flight instructor with a dead end job at a gym and a thousand reasons not to become a wife. But she skimmed the answers she'd given and the last question-  _ Are you ready for marriage?  _ \- there was something surprisingly optimistic about the answer she'd written.  _ I'm ready to accept love into my life again. _

\---

Dax sent the application over and Lee joked that sure, sure, he'd fill it out. 

Two weeks later, he was bored enough to actually do it. It had been two months since he'd wrecked his wrist and his CO took pity on him and sent him home to rest and recover. It had been too long since he'd taken even a day off, she reasoned, and she’d stretched out the recovery time to as long as she could give him.

It was a fine thought, but his life on Caprica had moved on without him. He crashed in a friend's empty apartment and the building was two blocks from Zak's old place, but that wasn't so bad. It was nice walking into his brother's favorite bar and getting his favorite beer on occasion, but he mostly stayed home.

When he filled out the application, he actually thought about it and dwelled on the answers.  _ Are you ready for marriage?  _ it asked, after everything else. 

_ I hope so. _

\---

Kara didn't believe her eyes when the message came through asking if she would come to a convention hall for the group orientation. There were dozens of people, hearing about the process and the show and marriage. It didn't scare her off. She could do anything, she reminded herself. 

The answer she'd written kept her there, if she was honest. She wanted love. And dating had been less than ideal in the last few months when she'd tried it. 

In the interviews after, when she turned from one of a hundred to one of ten, she kept Zak's name out of her mouth. 

She'd been engaged. He died. His family didn't need the details out there on television. The matchmaking experts were understanding of that, when she wouldn’t explain any further.

They asked if she could be the wife of someone in the fleet. 

She laughed and said yes. She'd been prepared to do that once, not that she said that. A trainer at a gym, an artist for hire- those were jobs she could take anywhere. Any planet, even a battlestar, she'd handle it. Caprica didn't hold her heart anymore.

(Kara never visited the blocks around the apartment she'd lived in with Zak. She wouldn't mind being lightyears away)

\---

In the interviews, Lee didn't say it but he could just think of wanting a family, a home, more than just a place to sleep. He'd had that, briefly as a kid, and then again when he had found the time to be with Zak and his girlfriend when his little brother was in flight school. His mind wandered to the three of them, laughing on the pier watching sailboats go by when they asked what he most wanted in a marriage. 

He told them that he wanted to put down roots.

The experts looked at his work and frowned. “Life of an officer isn't exactly conducive to that, you know.”

Of course he knew. 

“I'd love to have my spouse on the battlestar with me, but I'd try for a planetside position. Might even get out soon.”

He could see the pleased surprise in their eyes when he said that, and he felt that same jolt of shock. After the funeral, Kara had gotten out of the Colonial Fleet but he'd barely allowed himself to think about it. But for a chance at a family, a home, the happiness of his spouse? He'd think about quitting, and he hadn't even realized that.

He was just getting his cast off when the television crews contacted him again for another filming opportunity. 

The matchmaker he liked least met him in a coffee shop with a stern look on his face, and Lee braced himself for a rejection that didn't come.

He was getting married. 

\---

  
  
  


Kara reminded herself that she was fine. 

Her dress had been hastily picked out, but she looked good. She’d taken two girlfriends to pick out for the cameras, twirling around in front of the mirrors as if this meant anything to her. She’d get married in her workout clothes, for all she cared. It was a ceremony, the kind of thing she avoided, but it was worth it to meet her husband.

On her wedding day, she kept reminding herself to breathe, it was fine. The matchmakers knew what they were doing.

And if not, it was only eight weeks and then she’d divorce the asshole.

Her side of the church would be full, but most of them were casual acquaintances. Her closest friends- the ones she would have invited to her first marriage- were in the fleet and were across the Colonies.

Sindy had arrived, at least, gotten a one day pass since the  _ Solaria _ was near Caprica. And her coworker friends from the gym, the salesmen from the gallery. She’d made a small, loosely-knit family here.

All of that was fine. They’d be happy for her, if a little concerned that she was doing something this fucking stupid.

There was no one to walk her down the aisle- her mother didn’t even know where she lived these days, she wasn’t invited- and for a moment she wondered what her husband would think when he saw her walking towards him alone.

Walking down the aisle wasn’t scary. She’d done scary, and this wasn’t even close.

She smiled to the camera and gathered her nerves and the bouquet and walked out, turning two corners before she saw it. A gathered crowd, a beautiful archway, a priest, a man in colonial uniform.

The music flared and everyone rose, turning to look at her, including the groom.

Her groom.

Lee.

The soft litany of  _ this is fine, this is fine, this is fine,  _ stopped in her head and her steps faltered.

She could run.

She could bolt and Sindy would tease her and Ray from the gym would laugh about it but no more than they had when she’d told them about her plan to marry a complete stranger in the first place.

She  _ should _ run.

Sindy might even remember him- had the two of them ever met? Unlikely. But Sindy might have seen the picture that Kara had kept in her locker, her pressed up against Zak and Lee standing off to the side. The fact that she knew this groom wouldn’t be a secret for long- the cameras would hang on their every word, listen to them ask how the last few years had been, and then broadcast it out for bored Capricans to gobble it all up.

She covered the terror in her eyes and smiled again and corrected her pace.

She could march in time to any piece of music;anyone who graduated basic could.

This wasn’t scary. She’d seen scary and this wasn’t it. She was fine. Lee was a good man, and she was here to accept love into her life. She’d felt so loved, back then.

She walked up to the altar and faced Lee, reaching out to put her hands into his.

Everyone sat down.

The priest began the ceremony, and he squeezed her fingertips with his own.

She was fine.


	2. I'm Falling Right Back in Love With Bein' Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Honeymoon Phase

Lee couldn’t believe his eyes.

Kara looked good. No softer since the last time he’d seen her, but her hair was grown out now that she probably wasn’t in zero G all the time, and he’d certainly never seen her in a dress like that before.

His hands in hers, he gently squeezed. 

“You alright?” He asked under his breath, as the priest began.

“Yeah, are you?”

“Never better,” he answered, and he was fairly certain that was true.

Marrying a complete stranger sounded terrifying and exhilarating and a huge risk. Marrying Starbuck was just as terrifying a prospect, just as risky, and more exciting.

Lee repeated after the priest, and so did she, and then they leaned in to kiss one another for the first time.

She lingered.

He smiled widely when they pulled back.

\---

At the reception, Sindy walked up to them at the table and hugged Kara tightly, and then embraced Lee as well.

“Been a while, sir,” she said, and after the pleasantries, she went back to her table.

“Officer Candidate School,” Lee clarified softly. Kara nodded. Their lives were intermingled more than she’d ever thought about, but there was no way around that, she supposed, both being in the Fleet like they were. Had been.

She’d expected the reception- and the pictures- to be awkward. And they would have been with a random groom, her husband, his hands on her hips while they smiled at the camera. But that awkwardness was magnified, warped, flipped on its head and then turned insignificant when the stranger was Lee. They giggled at the stupid poses, and she stuck her tongue out at him when they were supposed to be staring lovingly into eachothers eyes.

At the table, their shared history hummed between them, even if their connection was built on a dead man. She worried, before the wedding, about explaining the fact that her parents weren’t there, but Lee’s weren’t either, so it was easy to not bring up.

Lee’s friend got up to give a toast, and then Sindy went up, and then they were dancing and then it was time to go.

She leaned against him in the fancy car to the hotel, exhausted. His arm snaked around her and she smiled up at him.

“Glad it was you,” she whispered.

\---

Lee unzipped her from the dress, helping with the buttons on the back, and she hung it up, buck naked, and walked into the bathroom for a shower, all while he tried to avert his eyes.

“You can look, you know,” she called from over the sound of the water.

He didn’t answer, just set about getting out of his dress uniform, laying it out on the bed first before he retrieved the garment bag to put it away properly. 

The water shut off- unlike him, apparently she still took quick showers. Whenever he was on leave, he took long, hot showers and happily paid the extra water bill if it was that kind of hotel. Kara reappeared in record time at the door, wrapped in a fluffy towel.

“Get in there, I can’t sleep til you’re done, and I’m tired,” She said, nodding at the steamy bathroom, and started rifling through her packed bag.

He did as he was told, bringing his sleep pants with him and leaving his uniform on the bed for later.

The hotel shower was fancier than where he’d been staying and he wasn’t going to lose this opportunity. When he was done and smelling faintly of the fancy floral soap, he emerged in just his long plaid pants and immediately noticed his uniform missing from where he’d left it.

“Taken care of, but you’re welcome to check it,” Kara said, watching his gaze from under the covers. She gestured to the closet and he smiled sheepishly and did go to check. There’d be hell to pay if he left it with a bad crease or wrinkle for too long, but it was pristine. “I do know what I’m doing, even if it’s not in my job description anymore.”

“What is in your job description these days?” He asked as he got into the bed, under the plush covers and with a foot between them at least. It was respectful, he figured.

She pushed closer to him, pressing against his side and snuggling in as easy as she had in the limo here. “Trainer at a gym. One of those fancy places I could never afford.” 

That tracked for her. The Kara he had met would never be able to sit still for long. “Sounds like my kind of gig.”

“Yeah? You’re not gonna be a pilot forever?”

“Been thinking of getting out. Isn’t… the same.”

Kara was silent against him, but he could feel her nodding against his shoulder. “I get that.”

He let his eyes slide shut, exhaustion tugging at his bones in the silence.

“I usually have sex on the first date.” Her voice was quiet, and she didn’t move as if to act on that statement. 

“Uh huh,” he answered carefully.

“To figure out if I’m wasting my time or not.”

“Uh huh,” he repeated. This was leading one clear direction, but she was still right where she’d been, curled up with him, her arm across his chest and not making and indications that it, or she, was going anywhere.

“Doesn’t seem right this time.”

“I’d hope that today is unlike any first date you’ve been on,” he said, trying for teasing. It came out strained, his thoughts still catching up.

She pressed a kiss to his shoulder, and it sent goosebumps up his spine how gentle and caring that motion was. “Nothing like this, no. Seems like my usual playbook is out.”

“We’ll have to figure it out together. Guess it’s what most married couples do, anyway,” he said softly.

“Night,” she murmured. He repeated it back and let his eyes close again.

\-------------------

Kara awoke curled against Lee, not quite holding eachother but still unable to move without waking him. It felt nice, and she stayed put, half asleep as the sun started to peek in.

She wondered how much sleep he got usually.

She woke early still, but Lee didn’t seem to have that problem, even on extended leave. A small sprig of envy bloomed in her, but she plucked it and tried to feel happy for him. It was better than near constant exhaustion.

In the spaceport, they chatted about their lives- she knew bits of his childhood, but only through Zak’s point of view, and hearing it from a new perspective was interesting. Her own childhood wasn’t polite conversation, but she could laugh about parts of it, and that was easy to get through while waiting for their transport.

One thing she’d forgotten- Lee was easy to talk to. 

He was charming and sweet and endearing and funny and engaging and she hung on his every word. He seemed to do the same to her, too, listening to the crazy shit she’d done.

And they had plenty of time together on the luxury resort with real beaches, cozy hammocks for two, a bungalow where they could hear the waves and the bugs at night.

She knew she was holding something back by not telling him about Zak, about that flight exam, but she hadn't spoken that truth aloud once in her life and it could break this now, ruin something good in her life before it's even really started. The subject was easy to avoid anyways, they didn’t bring him up often.

For the show, the pair of them flew over the coastline, and the pilot with them, a perky woman named Hayley, got scared shitless when Kara took over and disabled autopilot and bypassed the safeties to take a proper joyride.

Lee snickered as Kara received one hell of a dressing down from the show producers, and she wanted to throw something at him. She hadn’t gotten anyone hurt.

“Nice flying out there,” he said, genuine respect in his voice when they got to leave.

“Everyone was safe,” she muttered. The drop in altitude that made Hayley and the cameraman start praying to the gods had been a minor setback.

“No seriously. Nicely done.”

He kissed her cheek and she caught his face and pulled him into a proper kiss.

The next day, they met up with the other couples that had been married off. Kara hugged Renee, the only woman she’d really connected with in the process, and the five women broke off from the men.

“So who’s had sex?” Liddy asked, getting to the center of it.

Renee put her hand up, smiling sheepishly. Liddy also raised her hand, and Tee. Liddy looked expectantly over at Kara and Viv.

“Not telling,” Viv laughed.

Kara shrugged. The pair of them were having fun and going to sleep satisfied but it wasn't sex. They hadn’t quite gotten to that line yet.

\--------

  
  
  
  


On the last morning, Kara laughed at Lee packing his suitcase so tightly that he had to sit on it, and he tossed a shirt back her way, saying that if she could do it better she should.

“My wedding gift to you oughta be new luggage, that’s ancient,” she teased, and he smiled back.

“Call it your anniversary gift,” he answered.

“Deal.” 

Just like that.

Before the ceremony, he’d wonder if he’d consider backing out of the marriage when the show gave them an out, or later. If he’d treat this as anything less than a fully binding, eternal marriage.

He desperately didn’t want that now, and given how easy she just agreed to an anniversary gift, she didn’t either.

Kara hadn’t seemed like the commitment type, but she’d showed up on the show too. He’d gotten to see the side of her that collapsed on the beach after a long run, tugging him down next to her, and wanted to ask him then and there what he was going to be doing two year in the future, since the thought had just occurred to her to ask. He’d gotten to see the side that danced at the resort bar in the flashing lights, checking over her shoulder to make sure he was looking. He’d gotten to see the side that remembered to include Zak in the prayers when they visited the nearby ancient ruined temple to the gods.

He loved that she was familiar and funny and affectionate and yet surprising. 

On the flight back, she dozed leaning against him.

He moved into her apartment. It was a small space, but the loft’s concrete walls were painted vibrantly, and when he found himself alone in the apartment he could sit and stare at them.

His time on leave wasn’t unlimited but it felt close to it- his CO had gotten him more time, miraculously, from virtue of his wedding. 

_ “You haven’t taken leave in five years,”  _ she said.  _ “You earned it.” _

It meant that he was an unemployed bum collected weekly paychecks, filling his time during the day much as he had before- reading, going to the gym (never hers), walking around the town.

They chatted at nights, when the cameramen had left, and bickered for the cameras in the daytime because that was expected and because Kara was kind of a total slob and he couldn’t leave well enough alone.

He never slept on the couch.

Two weeks after the honeymoon, he got another call from his CO.

  
  


\------

  
  


She could read him now, three whole weeks into marriage, and when she returned home from yelling at people the stress and exhaustion was etched across his face.

“Did I leave the dishes again? Shit, I was exhausted, I’m sorry,” she said, before looking at him closer and know that wasn’t it. Besides, she’d actually tried the last few days to not be the kind of roommate that Sindy had called a literal tornado.

Lee shook his head and slid a datapad across the table. She picked it up and scanned it.

She knew what fleet orders looked like.

“I’m sorry. She’s been trying to get me out of it, but no dice. I have to be at the decommissioning.”

Kara didn’t want to look up at Lee. “Would it help if I went?”

“You have to work”

“Don't dodge the question. Would it?”

She thought she might love him when she told him that she would go even when he warned her that it might involve seeing the old man.

The old man, who still didn’t know of the recent happy news.

They wrote the letter to him together, cringing over the wording, away from the prying eyes of the cameras. 

They hitched a ride with a Caprican news team, and it wasnt even until they arrived in the docking bay that they received a terse response from the elder Adama.

_ Congratulations. I’ll be glad to see you both. _

She squeezed his hand as they waited to disembark the transport. She hadn’t been on a fleet ship in years. This was fine, this was fine. 

She had Lee by her side, she would be fine.

  
  



	3. When I Say Forever It's The Goddamn Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory "this version of the characters but in the miniseries" because i'm................ predictable

Lee wasn’t by her side for long. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and dashed off in his uniform to go find the flight deck.

Kara put their shit down in guest quarters- nicer than the bunks she knew were elsewhere on the ship, making the double wide bed look like a luxury. It still wasn’t roomy. She’d known what she was getting into.

Galactica was a new ship to her, but she’d been on other Battlestars in her career. Impossible to avoid them altogether.

The old man had asked if she’d ever wanted to work on a Battlestar after the funeral, when they were smoking cigars outside a nice bar he’d invited her to. She respectfully answered that she was getting out as soon as she damn well could. He hadn’t pushed it. 

Now, she wandered the ship and wondered what her life would have been like if she’d taken him up on that offer. She could be one of the pilots jogging by in the double tank tops, or rushing by in uniform like the man that was almost certainly late for a shift.

Instead, she was little more than a tourist at the museum, just a few days early. The people hustling past her didn't spare her a second glance. This kind of place was no longer her home and, from the way Lee spoke about getting out, it never would be.

Being away from the cameras for the first time since before the wedding felt freeing. Sure, they weren’t there when she was at work, but the rest of the time the cameras were on her, ready to find some moment where she smiled at a message from Lee or rolled her eyes at something he said. Every tiny thing was a potential pivotal moment in the story arc the producers wanted, and nothing was her own.

Right then, wandering down a hallway was all her own. Walking into a rec room was all her own, and she could order a whiskey or three and not worry about how that would make her look, feeding some narrative that she might be drinking away some perceived unhappiness with the marriage. She could buy into the card game with the enlisted and get a cigar and kick her feet back. 

She could see one hell of a familiar face and taunt him when he sat down. Zak had told Kara about the unhappy marriage long ago, and she'd even met Tigh after the funeral. He was the only person to call her a coward to her face about leaving. She'd spat back that his wife was miserable with a husband like him. It was a clumsy insult, but they'd never met and she was grasping at anything to throw in his face, after he poked too close to the truth.

Of course her choice to leave made her a coward. The part where she couldn't fail the man she loved made her one, too.

But how dare that man say such a thing to her face?

And worse, how dare he be so close to her right now, and win the hand? 

She flipped the table.

Her fist met his face, or tried to, before she was pulled away.

The other two players in the game, the ones with the sense to grab her before she could break Tigh’s nose, marched her down to the brig as ordered. That, at least, felt familiar.

\----

The cameras clicked on the awkward moment where Lee stood too close to his father, and he would have given his left leg to be anywhere else.

“You married Kara Thrace,” the elder Adama said once the reporters left. No preamble. “You could have brought her to the photo.” 

“I can't announce too widely that I'm married. In the contract.” His voice was stiff and the words are just an excuse. He needed her here on the Galactica, knowing that he'd be able to stay with her overnight and then they'd go back to her place in the morning, but he wouldn't subject her to this stupid shit that he himself dreaded. The fact that the show needed to make their relationship status a mystery was just convenient.

“Were you going to tell me?”

Lee could only shrug. “We haven't spoken in over a year. Wasn't sure thus was the news you'd want.” He caught the look of hurt in his father's eyes but he couldn't force himself to regret his words. “Is there anything else sir?” 

The commander looked at him wearily, sizing him up. “I'd happily hear any of your news, son. Just remember that. You're dismissed.”

Lee turned on his heel and left, knowing he had about an hour. If he'd been here a month ago, he would have found the gym and jogged or lifted weights. As it was, he wondered where Kara was. 

An ensign found him as he was leaving their shared temporary quarters, passing along the news. He sighed heavily and went right back to the office he’d just left. His father looked up in surprise when he knocked on the open door, and chuckled when Lee asked, very formally, for leniency with Kara.

They worked out a deal, and his father put a hand on Lee’s shoulder like they were working together finally, and he didn’t shrug away.

The brig on the Galactica looked like any other Battlestar brig, but more than that, the sight of Kara in a brig felt like five years ago, meeting her the first time and Zak saying that his girlfriend was just a little caught up and then having to go sweet talk her out of a cell.

He smiled at the memory. “Why does this look so familiar?”

“You proud of your wife yet?” She asked, smiling back. She leaned forward against the bars and reached for him, and he grabbed her hand, interlocking their fingers. 

He chuckled. “I guess I knew what I was getting with you,” he answered, “You'll still be on the secretary's ship outta here. Lucky you're not still in the fleet or even I couldn't have sweet talked you outta this cell.” He was the only reason she was here in the first place, but he at least had the power to fix this mess. 

“Give your delinquent wife a kiss?” She asked, pressing in closer. He glanced over at the guard who was staring wide-eyed at them, and then gave her a peck between the bars. It registered that this would have been a picture perfect moment for the cameras, and he was glad that it wasn’t recorded. This was just between them. 

“I’ll see you when we’re back on Caprica,” he murmured, their faces still a breath apart. He’d be flying the vintage viper back after the ceremony, escorting the secretary back. The trip was working out surprisingly well, if you ignored his wife in a cell.

\----

In the secretary’s ship, she was led to the passenger area in the back and told sternly to remain calm. There was no fight to pick here, anyways, so she leaned against the window and looked out at the black as the Galactica receded from view. It was just their ship and Lee, and even if she was surrounded by the other passengers it was still lonely once the battlestar was out of sight. 

The chances that she would miss this life felt lower than she would have guessed two months ago. She’d had regrets about leaving like she did, but they were vanishing now. She liked her life on Caprica, with her own schedule and an apartment she owned and no unknown future date that she’d be sent off somewhere new without warning.

And she liked Lee.

She fell asleep. The ride back to Caprica wouldn’t be too long, she’d wake up and they’d go back to their honeymoon for another week before Lee left, just for a few months. The future she imagined unfurled before her, sweeping her into a rosy dream where Lee would get out, and they’d live together full time. Maybe get a dog. Get a drink after work, cook dinner at home.

“It’s been nuked,” she heard, waking her. The words took their time to register, soft and shocked. Someone repeated them, loader. 

“Nuked? Bullshit.”

“No, they just _said_ , interrupted the news report to-”

Her eyes flew open. Nukes meant war. War meant the end of that happy, rosey dream.

She pushed her way to the front of the passenger area, through the curtain, to where the secretary stood next to the trembling pilot. His voice shook when he told her to get back to her seat. She wondered if he’d ever been scared like this before, and she guessed not.

“I’m his _wife_ ,” she answered, and swore that it would just be a second. The controls were easy enough, and she was patched through to Lee in just a second. “You be safe,” she murmured. “Good hunting.” 

She prayed to the gods that there would be nothing to hunt. She thanked the gods too, when the pilot pulled her off the radio before she can respond to Lee and pushed her to the back of the cockpit. She couldn’t have faced a day like this without Lee there. Well- she knew she could have. But it felt like a revelation, knowing that she was glad he was there with her, protecting them all. Protecting her.

Her heart stopped when his ship got disabled. She wondered if she’d ever been that scared before, and she guessed not.

\---

A lifetime later, the president’s ship arrived on the Galactica.

Neither of them had ever dreamed that the ship would feel like safety.

But it felt like home, like solid ground beneath their feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that only took 5 months  
> At some point I'll post a coda when I can figure out what to say and can figure out another Kesha lyric that fits for a title  
> Best wishes, y'all

**Author's Note:**

> I've been watching the season that's on Netflix and it's hot garbage but gee wiz, it sounds like the ridiculous kind of garbage that demands to be a bad trope.


End file.
